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frontier poetry and Chinese frontier poetry in general is the eastward rushing waters of Long Mountain
(long shui 陇 水 ):
陇 水 何 年 有
潺 潺 逼 路 旁
东 西 流 不 歇
65
曾 断 几 人 肠
In which year did the waters of Long mountain 64 come
to be,
Gurgling so close beside the road?
Flowing east to west without resting,
How many hearts has it broken?
(“Passing Long Mountain Where the Waters Part”)
一 驿 过 一 驿
驿 骑 如 星 流
平 明 发 咸 阳
暮 到 陇 山 头
Postal stop after postal stop,
Postal horse like a meteor;
At dawn set out from Xianyang,
At dusk arrive at Long Mountain.
陇 水 不 可 听 Can't listen to the waters at Long Mountain 66 ,
鸣 咽 令 人 愁
Sobbing sounds cause sorrow!
沙 尘 扑 马 汗
Sand and dust fly at the horse's sweat,
雾 露 凝 貂 裘
Wet fog settles on marten skin coat.
(“Passing Through Long Mountain for the First Time: Presented to Administrative
Assistant Yuwen, lines 1-8)
In focalizing the Wei river, however, the poet-narrator forgoes surmising how many hearts the
babbling and murmuring of the waters might have torn apart. Instead, he focalizes the waters as a
vehicle for transporting himself metonymically home by way of his tears (lei 泪 ), relying on the waters'
64
Meaning the Long river (long shui 陇 水 ) at the mountain.
65
“Jing longtou shui fen” 经 陇 头 水 分 . See CSJJZ, p. 75.
66
Ever since their appearance in the Yuefu poem “Song of Long Mountain” (“Longtou geci” 陇 头 歌 辞 ), the sounds of the
waters of Long River (Long shui 陇 水 ) have been catalysts of feelings of separation from home (See Yan Fuling, “Han-
Tang biansaishi zhuti yanjiu”, p. 44): “The flowing waters of Long Mountain,/Flow out from below the mountain./I
think of my entire life,/Tumbling about the open wilds./In the morning setting off from Xincheng,/At dusk staying at
Long Mountain./So cold I cannot speak;/My tongue rolls back into my throat./The flowing waters of Long
Mountain,/Murmur and whimper deeply./Gazing far off towards the rivers of Qin/My heart is about to break” 陇 头 流 水 ,
流 离 山 下 . 念 吾 一 身 , 飘 然 旷 野 . 朝 发 欣 城 , 暮 宿 陇 头 . 寒 不 能 语 , 舌 卷 入 喉 . 陇 头 流 水 , 鸣 声 幽 咽 , 遥 望 秦 川 , 心 肝 断 绝 . See
YFSJ 25.371. Long Mountain itself is located northwest of today's Long county 陇 县 Shaanxi province. In many
poems, Long Mountain and its waters were a point of egress on the journey to the borderlands for those travelling from
central China , a geographic locale marking the division between China proper and the frontier where one said goodbye,
often lachrymosely, to his hometown in the east (Dr. Tsung-Cheng Lin, personal correspondence, January 2013).